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With no De Niro in sight, a grab bag of distributors, producers, newbie directors, and what appeared to be an entire class of NYU film students gathered at last night’s New York Filmmakers party at Tribeca Cinemas to kick off the film festival. In between swapping business cards and downing ginger and Jamesons, they cast their bets on this year’s batch of films, with “the Forest Whitaker one” (The Air I Breathe) getting the most buzz, though director Sergio Castilla made a hard sell for his movie, Take the Bridge, about a group of people who attempt to commit suicide on the same day. “I can’t admit to being here,” one attendee said. “The real party is at the Court House, for Vanity Fair. This is sloppy seconds or really thirds.” But despite the lack of red-carpet names — Mary Stuart Masterson was supposed to show up at some point — festival first-timer Sheila Dvorak was “just excited” to present her film Artificial Dissemination, “a comedy about teenage half-siblings with the same sperm donor and a rare form of dyslexia. It’s a road-trip movie.” Though she thought, so far, the parties at Sundance were better. “Tribeca’s fun,” another producer added, “but it’s nothing compared to Cannes or Berlin.”